Just before starting to suffer nature withdrawal I managed to get out of Birmingham for a weekend trip with the Wayfarer hiking society to the Lake District. This was a must as the stress from multiple commitments was beginning to get to me and I am so glad I managed to get away from it all, clear my head and relax.
Gotta say, the trip surprised me. Was not expecting such incredible views on the first day and so much snow on the second. Throw in great company and you have the makings of a perfect weekend.
The trip kicked off with a bit of adventure. We arrived at the barn we were to stay in at around midnight and as we got out of the van the clouds parted to reveal billions of stars, most I've seen in England. Ever. We then proceeded to wait for the trip leader to go get the key to the barn so we could get in and much to everyone's surprise the people who were to give us the keys were nowhere to be found and could not be reached... We contemplated what to do, playing some murder detective story games, because being stuck outside in the middle of the night wasn't creepy enough already... Eventually, we did what anyone would do in this situation - we simply broke into the barn.
The barn was luxury compared to most of the huts I've stayed at on previous hiking trips. I mean there was hot water and electricity! This was basically a holiday house. This was nice as there were also pillows and blankets we could use which came in handy since it was freezing so I ended up using 3 after shivering throughout the first night (note to self: buy proper sleeping bag asap).
We woke up to some really lovely views: hills, mountains in the distance and grazing sheep in a field just beside the barn. The site reminded me of the port hills in Christchurch and I got all nostalgic. The sheep being there played a part in this too I believe... We also solved the mystery of the barn. Turns out we went to the wrong one... oh well, we rented this one instead and fixed the door, so no harm done.
The day continued with more incredible views and awesome conversations with all the wonderful people that came on the trip. Love how there were people from all over- France, Italy, Australia, you name it. As my friend always says, the best people come on hiking trips and she couldn't have been more right about it this time.
I tortured people a bit more with the riddle games that I knew and was surprised how fast some of them would figure out the answers, gotta find some more for next time! The wind picked up as we got to the summit at around lunch time, but this didn't scare us off, we continued forward splitting up into two groups, taking slightly different paths but finishing at about the same place.
We then ventured down to the pub to warm up before coming back to the barn for dinner and games. Many rounds of Mafia and all sorts of card games later, I went to bed hoping that 3 blankets would do the trick to keep me warm.
The next day was a bit rainy, but as we walked up the mountain, rain turned to snow and we were caught in a full on blizzard. This was a cool experience, but not so fun after the first hour or so which is why eventually we decided to turn back and go the way we came. Some careful manoeuvring by the trip leaders was attempted to disguise the fact that we were simply turning back, but we somehow saw through this. Guess a 10 metre loop around to the path just isn't enough to trick our brilliant minds.
Back in the minibus and 5 hours later we were back in Bham. Basically coming back meant returning to my hectic uni life and so I proceeded to race home to fill in an application for an internship, answer emails and the like. Hope to get another weekend like this soon, feel like days like that are what's keeping me sane with everything going on.
